The Recipe for Blogger Prom 2009: Lots of Cheese and Hard Work

Ericka of City Elf and me

It was about 2 months ago that I received an email from Caroline of Caroline on Crack and Esther of e*star LA, two fun, well known Los Angeles bloggers, asking me to join them on a quest to create an unforgettable Blogger Prom on Wednesday, July 22, 2009. I agreed, still not exactly sure what Blogger Prom even was! They recruited a couple of other wonderful bloggers, and the 8 of us became the Blogger Prom Committee...

• Caroline of Caroline on Crack
• Esther of e*star LA
• H.C. of LA and OC Foodventures
• Lindsay of LAist
• Marni of Happy Go Marni
• Maya of Shop Eat Sleep
  
• Natalie of The Liquid Muse
• Tara of When Tara Met Blog

The entire Blogger Prom Committee
L to R: Caroline, Natalie, Tara, Marni, Esther, H.C., Lindsay, Maya

Our mission was to organize an event that would bring together Los Angeles bloggers from every genre: food, tech, lifestyle, fashion, and everything in between. These are people we follow online but often have never had the chance to meet in person. The Andaz West Hollywood, a newly renovated hotel on the Sunset Strip with amazing views of Los Angeles, agreed to open their rooftop to us for the occasion. The venue was set, but we still had a lot more work to do!

View from the rooftop of the Andaz West Hollywood Hotel

We immediately built a Blogger Prom blog and set out to create an exclusive invite list and seek sponsors. We were overwhelmed by the responses. Trying to get 200 bloggers to attend this event turned out to be so easy that we had a waitlist! And because of the golden opportunity this became for brands of all sorts, being able to show off their products to a Who's Who of influential, talkative bloggers, sponsorship was also not a challenge.

In fact, we ended up turning down companies right and left because we could have had hundreds and that would have just been messy! Still, we kept enough that there were dozens of raffle prizes - everything from a $100 gourmet chocolate assortment from Charles Chocolates (YUM!) to a 6 game assortment of Wii games by EA (fun!!) to restaurant gift certificates to tickets to the Hollywood Bowl to a $300 gift basket of booze from The Edison in Downtown and so much more. And let's not forget the beloved, coveted goody bag that every attendee would receive at the end of the evening. Raffle prize winner or not, no one went home empty-handed. The bag contained chips, booze, free food coupons, a t-shirt, lube, ear plugs, hair products, granola bars, a Goldstar poster and a lot more. A big THANK YOU to the generous sponsors.

Over-stuffed goody bags for all!

We had liquor sponsors and one of our very own Blogger Prom Committee members, Natalie of The Liquid Muse, even concocted a signature cocktail for the evening. We had an official prom photographer Claire Barrett, whose work is amazing! We required cheesy prom attire, encouraging 80s era since that's as cheesy as you can get, and we were strictly enforcing that dress code at the door. The 8 of us committee members divided up the shifts for the evening so someone was always checking people in at the door, handling the raffle, giving out goody bags, etc... And after putting so much thought into every detail of the night, it was a big success! We are so pleased with the turnout, the outfits, the venue, the food, prizes, goody bags, and most importantly, the smiles on everyone's faces. They all seemed to be having a great time. Many asked us if we'd be doing this again next year because they for sure want to be on the list. I don't know what next year has in store, but as for 2009, yeah, I think we can safely say, "Mission accomplished."

Maya of Shop Eat Sleep receives her corsage from friend Chris

I went for the poofiest sleeves I could find

My friend David with the Cheese Impresario Barrie Lynn
who matches cheese to cocktails

Cheesecake pops from Pure Cheesecakes

Silamith, the liquor rep for Martin Millers Gin and Caroline of Caroline on Crack

To read some of the Blogger Prom coverage, take a look at these links:

BlogHer, "Blogger Prom 2009 in Los Angeles"
Caroline on Crack, "Blogger Prom 2009: Backstory and Wrap-Up"
LA Weekly, "We Hit It…Blogger Prom, That Is"
Lalawag, "Bloggers Just Wanna Have Fu-un"
Food Woolf, "Getting To Know You at LA’s Blogger Prom"
Franklin Avenue, "Scenes from a Blogger Prom"
Kevin Eats, "Blogger Prom (West Hollywood, CA)"
Nadine Jolie, "Jolie, the Prom Queen"
Shop Eat Sleep, "Blogger Prom was Awesome"
When Tara Met Blog, "Blogger Prom 2009"
and for hundreds of photos, the Blogger Prom Flickr Group Pool